User Reviews

Review this title
7 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
6/10
excellent storyline
trashgang4 October 2011
The cinema history is full of directors using an alias to make some smut. Or to protect themselves for being in the porn industry. The name Richard Mahler maybe doesn't ring a bell but when I say that his real name is Roger Watkins then I guess that those horror buffs will be moved. yes, the director of a cult classic "The Last House On Dead End Street" that he made under the alias Victor Janos.

Watkins only directed 8 porn films between 1979 and 1980. The time that the porn industry was at his best. It's all a bit strange because he hated the industry and wanted to make porn without f***ing, naturally that doesn't work and he was rejected from the non porn industry so he had to bring some money in and wrote those 8 flicks that became classics. The most famous were Midnight Heat and Corruption both with Jamie Gillis. Still he shot the close-ups and hardcore in his own films realizing he imbedded on freaky people and weird situations.

Her Name Was Lisa was his first attempt and appeared in 1979 in the NYC grindhouses. Of course made back then it really had a story and this here isn't your usual porn flick. It follows the life of massage girl Lisa who's being discovered by a photographer. But he has no money and Lisa is sponsored by a promoter. She gets involved in the promoter's sex life but things go wrong when friends of him rapes her while he's watching. She slips in a bizarre world of kinky sex and drugs. It's all shown in a special way. When she's drugged the camera uses extreme close-ups with special lenses and the sound of voices is pitched down while we here if I'm not wrong a Led Zeppelin song. It was a very heavy flick to watch and due that reason the films he made afterwards were lighter.

The porn itself is filmed with extremely close-ups of butt licking and pussy shots. Still it's the story that kept you watching. They all had an acting ability. Just watch Samantha Fox (Lisa) how her face changes from a role model towards a junkie.

The weird thing is that IMDb says it clocks in at 67 minutes, other say 70 minutes. Mine clocked in at 89 minutes. I don't know if I have a really uncut version. I must say that the scene when she's under heroin and is having triple sex goes on and on. Mine was a VHS version, I do know it's available on DVD at 70 minutes.

Still, those XXX flicks from the seventies do show how girls do look in real life. They do have curves and aren't living skeletons like nowadays. They act normal at work and do not fake groaning and moaning like it's done today. They did have a storyline and had good tunes in it (here we even have Kraftwerk in it). Maybe they were a bit hairy back then but they looked real with B-cup juggs and not those blown fake plastic dolls like nowadays. Yes, I like the old stuff, still, they are so hard to find...
13 out of 14 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Fox and del Rio Make the Film
Michael_Elliott31 July 2018
Her Name Was Lisa (1979)

*** (out of 4)

Roger Watkins directs this story that starts off with us seeing a dead young woman who we learn is named Lisa (Samantha Fox). A number of people come to pay their respects and through them we see the story of Lisa and how she ended up dead.

Watkins will always be remembered for the notorious film LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET but he also toyed with the porn genre and HER NAME WAS LISA will certainly appeal to his fans, although this early effort is not nearly as good as CORRUPTION. That there is without question the highlight of the director's career but there are still some good things to find in this film.

The story itself certainly isn't anything to write home about as there were several movies that used this set-up to tell its story of a young woman who finds herself dying due to how she lived. The idea of letting us know Lisa dies isn't anything original either but I thought it was decent enough to keep the viewer glued to what was going on.

Typically the stories play a part to keeping the viewer entertained but that's not really the case here because it's the sex that makes this movie so memorable. There are some pretty crazy scenes that I won't spoil here but Watkins certainly keeps your eyes wide as we get to these moments. Fox isn't exactly great in her role, performance wise, but she at least manages to keep you entertained. The same is true for Vanessa del Rio who shows up towards the end and steals the picture.

The sex scenes between Fox and del Rio are extremely erotic and are certainly the highlight of the picture. HER NAME WAS LISA isn't a masterpiece for the genre but it's certainly worth watching.
5 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
HORRIBLE!!!
fabcasper17 November 2021
If Jerry Falwell had ever made an x-rated movie in order to show the world everything that's bad about pornography, this would have been it. There's not one scene in this entire movie---not one!---that has anything at all to do with lovemaking!
0 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
8/10
A well written and directed x-rated film!
filmbuff197419 April 2006
I finally got a chance to enjoy this film on DVD.I was too young to get into a porno theater in 1979 but knew about it from the newspaper ads in the mainstream newspapers.Yes, that's right,the late 70's was the beginning of the golden age of porn and the filmmakers for the most part really tried to make a film with a story and they were shot on 35mm film.The actor's and actresses's were not the buffed model perfect specimens one sees in today's releases, but most had some acting ability and your intelligence wasn't insulted with dull clinical-closeup sex scenes and no plot whatsoever.

Anyway,the film stars Samantha Fox who plays a prostitute who moves up in the world by becoming the sex slave to various people in the sex industry.The sex scenes are for the most part erotic but in a in a almost sleazy documentary way.Nothing like the polished sanitary sex scenes in DVD productions today.But what makes Her Name Was Lisa superior is that there is a real story there.Worth purchasing for your collection.
20 out of 21 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
Soul Searching
Nodriesrespect6 December 2008
Warning: Spoilers
The first explicit sex film, made by the late Roger Watkins of LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET notoriety as his adult alter ego "Richard Mahler", may appear the most conventional of an admittedly idiosyncratic lot, followed as it was by such cryptic puzzlers as MIDNIGHT HEAT, CORRUPTION and American BABYLON. With its accessible narrative and unexpectedly powerful anti drug message, HER NAME WAS LISA proves thoroughly compelling though. One of the finest fornication flicks of the late '70s, huge praise considering the genre had just hit an all time high. There's a tiny bit of trivia about this movie that always amuses me, related in a fruitful e-mail relationship yours truly carried on with the director until his untimely passing. The film's funder (as Robert Michaels receives sole credit, I'll have to assume it's him) made but two demands of Watkins : that the main character would be called Lisa as it was the name of his daughter and that there would be a scene of her lying in a casket ! Go figure ! Joking aside, this turns out to be an unusually involving adult drama, not a single aspect thereof inviting derision.

In one of the standout performances over a genuinely distinguished dirty movie career, with her work on dearly departed Chuck Vincent's JACK 'N' JILL and ROOMMATES vying for top spot, Samantha Fox shines as titular Lisa, a jaded hooker who catches the eye of photographer client Paul. Latter character proves surprisingly well-played by handsome but frequently vacuous Rick Iverson (billed as "Jake Stuart") who did a decent job on Charles Larkin's enjoyable LOVE-IN ARRANGEMENT but failed to impress in anything else. He molds her into a much sought after fashion model in record time, featuring her in stylishly violent lay-outs clearly patterned after those in Irvin Kershner's then trendy EYES OF LAURA MARS, based on an early John Carpenter script. Watch for striking bald black actress Yolanda Savalas, who played the grotesque intergalactic queen in white body make up in Jerome Hamlin's lovably ludicrous INVASION OF THE LOVE DRONES, as a fellow model. Lisa's meteoric rise to fame captures the interest of perverted publisher Stephen Sweet (an indelibly creepy turn by David Pierce, just study his drawling dialog delivery, who did more movies than I realized, appearing in Bill Milling's excellent SATIN SUITE and BLONDE IN BLACK SILK) who wants to set her up in a luxury apartment for his own benefit. Accustomed to the play for pay business, Lisa exhibits few qualms about entering into this relationship. Even when Sweet demands domination, she unflinchingly caters to his every whim. Only when tables are turned and he has her viciously raped by Randy West and Bobby Astyr (the actress's real life longtime boyfriend), Lisa starts to psychologically unravel.

Seeking solace in the steam room, she meets deceptively sympathetic Carmen (a devastating performance by superstar Vanessa Del Rio, equal parts scary and seductive) who proves merely another stepping stone on her downward spiral, introducing the compulsively pill-popping Lisa to the dreaded needle, reducing her to sex slave status after she has stepped in to exact revenge on Sweet – sweet revenge, indeed – in a way that should make wronged women smile and macho men wince. As Lisa's brain grows progressively drug-addled, Watkins throws in several highly effective stylistic touches, exemplified by her haunting final encounter with depraved husband and wife Ron Hudd and future Manhattan cable show hostess Robin Byrd.

As in Sam Weston's superficially similar if far more schmaltzy CRY FOR CINDY, the narrative has been carefully constructed around the main character's funeral with each of the participants in her downfall coming to mourn and flash back on their shameful contribution. Unlike the relentlessly optimistic Weston however, Watkins pulls no punches. Sex scenes prove uncommonly powerful, studded with in your face genital close ups (a by-product of his inexperience with the form, the director would later claim, but perfectly appropriate for such an unromantic world view), running the gamut from (semi-) affectionate to downright nasty, occasionally difficult to watch yet always justified rather than irresponsibly included. By the time Carmen administers Lisa's final dose, the look of unreserved gratitude in Samantha's eyes is bound to break your heart, and Watkins needs not a shred of sentimentality to achieve the effect. The actress's well-reported substance abuse problems – now fortunately a thing of the distant past, as a recent AVN report on her Hall of Fame inclusion has suggested – assures there's a veracity in her work that really drives the message home. Special mention must be made of the soundtrack that includes surprise appearances by Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused and Santa Esmeraldo's Gimme Your Lovin' along with a startling original tune penned and warbled by Watkins himself, all too fittingly titled Don't Let Go (of Your Soul). He might arguably still have had to hit his full stride artistically in the fornication film field but this remains the one movie where the cynic defiantly bared his battered soul for the whole world to see.
11 out of 12 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
8/10
Dark, but erotic adult film
Woodyanders20 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Jaded young gal Lisa (a fine and affecting performance by Samantha Fox) starts out as a massage parlor girl before becoming a model for glamour photographer Paul (nicely played by Rick Iverson). However, Lisa eventually dumps Paul in favor of slimy publisher Stephen Sweet (a spot-on creepy portrayal by David Pierce), who gets Lisa involved in a dangerous world of hard drugs and bizarre sex that leads to Lisa's feeling degraded and ultimately culminates in her own tragic untimely death.

Writer/director Roger Watkins relates the engrossing downbeat story at a steady pace, maintains a grim serious tone throughout, and ably crafts a strong sleazy atmosphere. The sex scenes are quite explicit, energetic, and arousing, with a torrid S&M session and an intense pegging scene standing out as definite scorching highlights. Moreover, the excellent cast of hardcore cinema veterans tackle the dark and daring material with aplomb: Vanessa del Rio radiates a sinisterly seductive vibe as the predatory Carmen, Bobby Astyr and Randy West are memorably disgusting as a pair of brutish scumbags, and Ron Hudd and Robin Byrd are likewise effectively repellent as a depraved married couple. Further enhanced by slick'n'stylish cinematography and galvanized by a throbbing soundtrack of choice rock songs that include tunes by Kraftwerk and Led Zeppelin, this honey stands out as one of the best and most bold X-rated movies made in the Golden Age of the 1970's.
4 out of 5 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
8/10
Better than most "adult" films
Chuck S.1 June 1999
It's one adult film I think my partner and I would actually want to own. Revenge is sweet for sure. I didn't mind the strap-ons either, I thought they were a nice kinky touch. The plot really works in this genre too. See it with some you either love or hate. You'll figure it out after you see the end.
5 out of 9 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

See also

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews


Recently Viewed